Naing Tinnyuntpu is no stranger to systematic and efficient approach. He came from manufacturing environment with Bachelor's and Master's in Industrial Engineering (USA).

His notable contributions to the semiconductor industry were the techniques recognized by Sematech as ‘Administrative Quality Best Practices’ during his process engineering days with now defunct IC chip making division of Hewlett-Packard in Singapore.

Born and raised in Yangon, he has lived in six countries and knowledgeable in unrelated areas including self-taught programming languages.
His free online Burmese lessons serve as an effective communication bridge among tourists and growing numbers of foreign business managers with the Myanmar people.

Lesson 19: Making new friends in Myanmar | မြန်မာပြည်မှာ မိတ်ဖွဲ့ကြရအောင်

A boarding school or house in Burmese is called ဘော်ဒါဆောင် | bau2-da2 hsoun2 where the first word is the
English loaned word "boarder", and ဆောင် | hsoun2 means a hostel, dormitory or a hall. Those in the same boarding house become buddies and they
call one another ဘော်ဒါ | bau2-da2. So, the word ဘော်ဒါ |
bau2-da2 has evolved to mean buddy even if you don't go to the same boarding school. You will hear this usage by the younger generation of Burmese people in this short clip.

A boarding school or house in Burmese is called ဘော်ဒါဆောင် | bau2-da2 hsoun2 where the first word is the English loaned word "boarder", and ဆောင် | hsoun2 means a hostel or a hall. Those in the same boarding house become buddies and they call one another ဘော်ဒါ | bau2-da2. So, the word ဘော်ဒါ | bau2-da2 has evolved to mean buddy even if you don't go to the same boarding school. You will hear this usage by the younger generation of Burmese people in this short clip. ဂူဂူး | Gugu and Star International Dance Group. [40 seconds]

Myanmar's neighboring country Thailand is known as "the land of smiles". Burmese people are not much different when
it comes to natural friendliness. Myanmar people are also straight forward and open. Strangers help each others
without expecting anything in return. You can address to anyone in the street with the terms such as "young brother",
"elder brother", "aunty", "uncle", "big sister", and so on. (Please refer to lesson 4 on
how to say "you" in Burmese.)

If you are obviously a foreigner from the way you look or dress, people will be curious where you came from.
We will start with some likely phrases that they will ask you when you meet new people in Myanmar.

Myanmar Grammar Notes: Burmese question words such as ဘယ် |
beare2 and ဘာ | ba2 can be
either pronoun or adjective depending on how the sentence is constructed.
If the question word makes a clear reference to the noun in the sentence, it is an
adjective.

Take note that you can use နိုင်ငံ | nine2-ngan2
and တိုင်းပြည် | tine3-pyi2 interchangeably
when asking the question: "Where are you from?". When answering that question, the word
ပြည် | pyi2, which is the short for
တိုင်းပြည် | tine3-pyi2 (country) is
added to a few exceptional countries.

For a few countries that Burmese have been in touch with for centuries like China, India, France, and Thailand, there
are already Burmese words for those countries.

ယိုးဒယား ကပါ |
Yo3-da1-ya3ga1ba2
-- I am from Thailand.

Some of the old words from the past generations are no longer in use, including
ဘိလပ် | Bi1-lut derived from the
Hindi word Wilayat for England, ရောမ |
Yau3-ma1 for Rome (Italy), and ခေါမ |
khau3-ma1 for Greece.
Names of countries in Burmese Script are given in the table on the left column.

Take another note that there is no "you" in the above sentences as it is understood that the conversation is about "you" or "he" or "she"
right there at that moment. The speaker could be either directly talking to you, or asking that question about you through the translator.

It appears that some Westerners who translate Burmese into English try so hard to include the word "you" in sentences such as
ခင်ဗျား | kha1-mya3 (used by male speaker)
and ရှင် | shin2 (used by female speaker).

The question သလား | tha1-la3 is almost the same as
လား | la3.
The extra သ | tha1 in Burmese spoken language appears
to come from the ending word သည် | dthi2
in the written language, which is the affirmation word. So, tha1-la3 probably expects the
answer "yes" more than la3.

What's your name?

It will come to you as a shock, but your name is also not a central importance in the first meeting (unless you are a foreigner) as people can
still address to each other as "brother" and "sister", or simply omit it. In the formal business meetings, it's more likely that the third person
will introduce your name and the name of the person that you just met, so you will never have to use the phrase "What's your name?" For the Burmese people,
it is more likely that people will get to know each others' names through the acquaintance than directly asking "What's your name?"

Here again, some Western translators of Burmese (Myanmar) Language seem to think this question as an important phrase, complete with
the use of the word "you". If you must ask the name of the person you just met, just omit the word "you".

Is it rude to be asking someone's name in the first meeting? No, it's not. You can go ahead and ask if you need it
for the next meeting. Since you are a foreigner, you cannot rely on acquaintances, friends and family to know someone new.

Let me give some examples on how Burmese people ask someone's name. I go to a place to pick up a package. I knock on the
door. Someone comes out to the door. I say: "I am here to pick up the package."

This question is roughly equivalent to "Who should I tell him is here?" (or)
"Who should I tell her is on the line?"

``

What race are you?

No, this is not a racist remark. This is a common question that Myanmar people will be interested. You can just answer by the
country that you come from. If you would like to further clarify it, you can say things like

This is also the question that you can ask to people that you meet in Myanmar. The main ethnical groups in Myanmar are Kachin,
Kayin, Chin, Shan, Rakhine, Mon, Kayah, and Bamar (Burmese), not counting minor tribes like Wa, Palaung, Lisu, Salone and so on that add up to
more than 100 distinct languages and dialects spoken in this country.

In Myanmar, those with Chinese and Indian racial background are also important groups who play a major role in the economy.
They add to the rich flavor of multi-racial culture as well as cuisine in this country.

In Myanmar, those with Chinese and Indian racial background are also important groups who play a major role in the economy. They add to the rich flavor of multi-racial culture as well as cuisine in this country. [24 seconds]

Myanmar people also tolerate inter-marriages among different racial, ethnical, and religious background.
Myanmar has taken Nationwide census သန်းခေါင်စာရင်း |
tha1-goun2 sa1-yin3 (meaning "midnight list") from March 30 to April 10 in 2014
with the help of international aids and expertise after it was last taken in 1983. Here are two websites for reference:

What's in a name?

There has been a lot of controversies and debates as to whether to use the word Burma or Myanmar for this country. Burma is the name known by
the western world for several decades because that's how the British called this land as they colonized it for more than a hundred years.
Some don't accept the change of the name of the country to Myanmar by the previous military government that they despise. Some argue that the
name မြန်မာ | Myanmar is more representative and inclusive of the ethnic groups,
while Burma represents only the main racial group known as ဗမာ | "Bamar" who speaks
Burmese. Does it really matter? A rose by any other name is still a rose.

Where do you live?

You can ask the local people you meet this question:

ဘယ်မှာနေလဲ |
beare2hma2nay2leare3
-- Where do you live? (where + at + live + ?)

Myanmar Grammar Notes: English speakers might expect the word "near" to be an adjective. In the above Myanmar sentence,
it is used as a verb. To use this word as an adjective, suffix particle must be used.

Small friendly talks over the lunch | အာလာပသလ္လာပ

I have already covered how to order food or drink in Lesson 15. As you sit down around the restaurant table
waiting for the food to come, you can make small talks with your new Burmese acquaintance. It's a good idea to ask his or her name now
if you haven't done so already, because we will include the name in some of the phrases. Although Burmese sentences can be formed without
the word "you" or names as mentioned above, including the name of the person in the conversation of personal nature put more warmth to it.

That's probably a better response if your religion is different, or if you are a free thinker. However, if you are really religious, and your
religion prohibits you to do or eat certain things, it's best to come up with a straight answer.